"Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars." – Khalil Gibran

Ileana Diaz

My name is Ileana Diaz. I am 46 years old. Have been married for 21 years to my wonderful husband David. We have two children, 19 year old Alex and 17 year old Amanda. I currently live in Davie, Florida. I was diagnosed with Ankylosing Spondylitis in 1996. It started with a severe case of iritis and after that was resolved and to my confusion was sent to a rheumatologist who diagnosed me with AS. Of course, I never heard of AS before. In addition to AS, a few years ago I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia. It’s been difficult, but I have managed to work full time until a few months ago when I decided to cut back to part-time. I enjoy my job very much, but I really don’t know how long I’m going to be able to keep this up. It gets more difficult every day to in the morning. Well that is my story, but now I would like to share a poem I wrote when I was going thru a very bad flare.